Five settings to change on a new phone before you do anything else
Ten minutes of setup that will save you battery, storage and a great deal of unnecessary notification noise.
1. Turn off background refresh you did not ask for
Most applications request permission to update in the background and almost none of them need it. Leave it on for mail and messaging; switch it off elsewhere and watch standby drain improve immediately.
2. Set notifications to summary
A daily digest for everything that is not a person messaging you turns the phone back into a tool rather than an interruption.
3. Check the default storage for photos
Shooting in the highest-quality format by default fills a phone quickly. Unless you edit seriously, the efficient format is indistinguishable and roughly half the size.
4. Enable automatic security updates
Feature updates can wait. Security patches should not.
5. Add your emergency information
It takes two minutes and it is reachable from the lock screen. It is the one setting you hope never matters.